Driven from their homes by conflict family, running away or leaving youth centers, many adolescents and young adults turn to the Auberges du cœur to avoid the streets or to learn to become independent.
After having made a “big silliness”, Eric (fictitious first name), 16, was shown the door of the house. “My parents did not know what to do with me,” sighs the young man in front of a plate of spaghetti at the Auberge du Coeur in Joliette, which welcomes young people from 12 to 17 years old. “Here, it’s like a break, because at home, it’s hell. We’re new at home, my room is in a closet, and my parents are always on my back because I’m the oldest. “
Vincent (fictitious first name), 17, arrives from school just in time for supper. He has been living at the Auberge for two months. “It started suddenly: my parents gave me the choice: here or the DPJ. “
The teenager was slow to acclimatize to the proximity and the rules of the establishment. Like each resident, he must follow the established schedule and accomplish tasks: setting the table, doing the dishes, washing, etc. But today, he feels better equipped to face life: “I learned a lot of things here, especially the management of my emotions and the sharing. “
After months of near silence, he now recounts his life like a torrent, talks about his dreams and the relationship he is rebuilding with his mother.
The workers give the young people “tools”, but since they are all minors, the staff also work with their parents in the hope that they can return to their families. And it is often “more difficult” with parents who do not always collaborate, laments Mr.me Bélanger. “In some cases, they just park their kids here and never return our calls. “
Negotiating the transition to adulthood
Some Heart Hostels also offer supervised apartments for young adults. This is the case with the Lower Town Squat in Quebec City, which has seventeen housing units.
Gabriel Gagné spent a good part of his adult life there before moving to an apartment two years ago. Today, he in turn helps young people as a street worker with the TRAIC Jeunesse organization.
His first stays at the inn date back to his 13th birthday. “I went there because I ran away from reception centers. He took advantage of his freedom to play music and connect with the punk community he considered his real family and slept a few days a week at the Squat.
The possibility of having accommodation at the Squat at 18 was providential for him, but “it was a long process nonetheless”. After evicting him for ransacking his apartment, the Squat team gave him a “second chance” because he was truly ready to make changes in his life.
“Gaining the confidence of young people when they arrive is complicated,” notes the director, Véronique Girard. “It is not uncommon for us to be the twentieth or thirtieth intervening in their life. “
Zackary Fournier, 20, was not lacking in suspicion when he arrived at the Squat two years ago. Used to going back and forth between his mother’s residence and multiple host families, he had known his share of disappointments.
The cooking student was about to turn 18 when a school worker told him about the organization the day after a big fight with his mother. It was either that or an overpriced apartment so small that there was no room for a single bed.
The apartments at Squat have the advantage of being much more affordable, he notes (they are subsidized so that the tenant does not spend more than 25% of his income on housing). “Worse, there were going to be interveners,” he recalls, explaining that he was less ready than he thought to live alone.
It is not uncommon that we are the twentieth or thirtieth intervening in their life.
“Better than in the street”
The scenario is repeated at the Auberge du cœur de Saint-Laurent, in Montreal. Around a hundred young people aged 16 to 22 come to the shelter every year. This is the case of Julien, 19, who landed here three months ago. “It’s better than the street,” launches the young man straight away.
After yet another conflict with his mother, the young man found himself homeless last summer. He lived for a few weeks in his car, trying to get a few hours of sleep in an anonymous parking lot and living on his meager savings. “I didn’t get much sleep,” he sighs. I moved a lot so as not to hang around tickets of the police. During the day, he still went to school and work, trying to hide his homelessness. Then, one day, someone told him the location of a heat stop where he could eat for free. From there, we sent him to the Auberge du cœur.
Julien is happy to have found a certain stability. “It’s been rock’n’roll my whole life,” says the young man.
Nadia (fictitious first name), 20, also found herself at the Auberge du Coeur following a difficult family situation: her father hit her.
“Here, I feel safe,” she says in a small voice. I have to tell myself often that everything is going to be fine, that I am OK. Nadia was born in Quebec, but her parents are from the Middle East. “They have transposed their culture and values here. We only saw people with these same values. I didn’t feel comfortable and I could never talk about my feelings: I wasn’t allowed to be sad. “
Cases like that of Nadia, the general manager of the hostel, Sébastien Lanouette, often see them. “Many young people of immigration adapt faster than their parents and that creates a clash in the family. “
Leaving youth centers
At the Auberge du cœur de Saint-Laurent, The duty met young people coming out of psychiatric hospital stays for suicidal thoughts, a teenage girl who had to leave home “otherwise [elle] took his own life ”and another who had just completed drug addiction therapy. There was also a young trans who wanted to rebuild his life in Montreal, but could not find a place in a male accommodation resource “for security reasons”.
Many of them also come directly from youth centers. “We see too much of it,” laments Mélissa McIntyre, a worker at the Auberge for nine years. “They shouldn’t need to be here, they should have the ability to make a living. But the reality is not that. They can’t make a grocery list, but they can describe their response plan in better words than I can. “
Sébastien Lanouette agrees with this. Several of the young people he receives in the “supervised apartments” section are unable to fend for themselves. “It’s amazing how much they don’t know what life is like: going to the hairdresser, making a dentist appointment. They don’t even know how to cook! The Moisson Montreal organization brings us baskets, but they hardly take anything, even if they are hungry, because they do not know how to use the food, if it is not frozen dishes with instructions on them! “
Lack of funding
Each year, more than 3,000 young people aged 12 to 35 spend in one of the thirty Auberges du cœur du Québec. But the waiting lists are just as long, deplores the director general of the Regroupement des Auberges du cœur, Paule Dalphond.
And the situation does not improve with a few days of Christmas. Of the ten places available at the Auberge du cœur in Saint-Laurent, only seven beds are available due to a lack of staff. “While this period is particularly difficult with the cold of winter, the crying lack of resources adds a heavy feeling of abandonment to these young people who already do not know where to turn,” says Mme Dalphond.
She denounces the lack of funding and the lack of recognition of the role these organizations play in preventing youth homelessness.
“We are often the solution before the placement of minors”, pleads Mme Dalphond, who recalls that the Auberges du cœur also lodges those that the DPJ refuses to take. In addition to recovering those who leave to help them in their process of empowerment.
As Naël Lozeau, a young person I met at Squat-St-Roch, explained, the hostels are like an electric bicycle with assistance. “The more you pedal, the more it goes. “